Secure// Ellie Williams

No More Music To My Ears

The movement in your hands may never come back. The movement in your hands may never come back. This is all that goes through my head as I sit on my bed with my ukulele on my lap. I can use my hand to balance the instrument, but I can't move my fingers to grip it. I just strum it, without the ability to actually play. 

"Hey." I look up and see Tommy standing there. Ellie right behind him. I just turn back down and strum the ukulele with my one useful hand. Tommy sighs as he goes back down. He mutters something to Ellie, but I don't bother listening.

"How are you?" Ellie asks but I ignore her and still strum the strings. Ellie comes over to me and puts her hand in the position of the chords. For the first time in the two hours I've been strumming a familiar chord is heard. I stop strumming and look at Ellie.

"What are you doing?"

"I just-" She begins but I don't let her finish, "I don't need your help Ellie. What are you even doing here?"

"I just wanted to check up on you." She says.

"So now you care? What you want to go on about all my bad decisions again?"

"No I just." She sighs, "I'm sorry."

"For what Ellie? What other things are you sorry for?"

"Everything." She tells me, "I just. I keep fucking up with you."

"It took me to get hurt for you to realize that?"

"No. I should have said it earlier. I'm sorry." Ellie tells me. I look at her with tears in my eyes. I just look away from her and continue strumming my ukulele with no chords. Ellie sighs and gets up then leaves my room.

~~~~~~~

It's been a week since my accident and I've got no feeling or movement in my left hand, and it's bruised and broken. Maria took me off of patrols unsurprisingly. I've got visits from everyone. Joel comes the most and always brings me a cup of coffee or a movie to watch with me. I've avoided most of my friends since they all just try to help me all the time. I shouldn't be mad at them for that, but I am. I don't want anyones pity. My days now are spent having coffee with Joel and Tommy in the morning, helping out Maria with scheduling and working in the school. Ellie continues to try and talk to me but it always ends the same. She has no right to say those things to me. She has no right to try and come back into my life and then continue to get mad at me with no explanation. She has no right to make me feel guilty for ignoring her and to continue to care for her even when I don't want to.

I decide to go and see Adam and Alaina since I know they're worried about me. I ran into Jesse and Dina a few days ago, so I'm not worried about seeing them right away, but I've stayed away from Adam and Alaina scared about their reaction. Surprisingly they act normal. I don't miss the worried glances exchanged between them or the glances they sometimes make to my immobile hand, but the conversation is normal.

"You guys are the most stubborn people I've ever met." Adam tells me as he, Alaina and I play cards. I have to keep putting mine on the ground to pick out the one I want without them seeing, but they be nice and look away when I grab a new one.

"Yeah what happened to trying to make it better?" Alaina asks. I shrug at them and they roll their eyes in response but don't continue the conversation. 

"The community party is coming up in a few weeks. You helping out with it?" Adam asks.

I nod at him, "Yeah. I'm gonna need your guys help with a few things as we get closer to the date." They say sure. For as long as I can remember Maria always asked me to organize the communities party. She says we have it to give the community a break to just relax and forget our worries for a little bit. We have them every two months, which depending on who you are you either think the wait is too long or too short. I know Ellie is one of the few who prefer to wait longer.